Comments on: As if Business Plans Don’t Matter to Venture Capitalists! Jeez!

By: Business Plans Don’t Matter to Venture Capitalists? | Business Writing Today

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:30:28 +0000

[...] Read it all on Berry’s website. [...]

By: Charles Crawford

Charles Crawford — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:48:07 +0000

Tim –

Thank you for responding to the article about the University of Maryland study. I agree with you 100%. If the aspiring entrepreneur hasn’t gone through the rigor of building a complete business plan (even if he doesn’t write it himself) he’ll likely stumble when he faces potential investors. You’ve inspired me to address this on my own blog.

By: Tim Berry

Tim Berry — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:15:21 +0000

Raj: thanks for the comment. Re your template, sorry, but I like Business Plan Pro a lot better because it has a productized and documented financial model built in, so anybody who can do the assumptions will have the financial projections mathematically and financially correct. Word is easy, but the tables are important, and Excel templates are way too easy to break. But I admit, I'm biased.

By: Do Investors Care What Your Business Plan Looks Like? « Space 2.0 Blog

Do Investors Care What Your Business Plan Looks Like? « Space 2.0 Blog — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:17:45 +0000

[...] Tim Berry of Palo Alto Software weighed in last week on his blog: I’ve consulted to venture capitalists in due diligence, for years, my company had venture capital investment in it and bought it back, and lately I’m also an angel investor. And I can tell you this: they may not read the plans, but that’s because the plan is for you, the startup wanna-be, to know what you’re trying to do, and how much money you need, and why, and what you’re going to spend it on. You may only show the VCs the presentation, but if you don’t have a plan behind it, with your numbers straight, then they’ll know it. [...]

By: Business Planning Without Business Plans : : FLOW Ventures

Business Planning Without Business Plans : : FLOW Ventures — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:34:14 +0000

[...] It’s amazing how much stock we put in business plans considering they are works of fiction. Few startups really know their precise target market, product, pricing or cost structure. How could they? I guess writing a business plan is a good exercise in research and discipline but only if it doesn’t distract you from real business planning. My personal favorite is figuring out the size of a market. Any time there is 3rd party research on market size your product is probably too late. You can’t really size a market you’re creating from scratch so don’t sweat the details. Just show an intelligent attempt and that will be impressive enough. A recent WSJ article claims that Business Plans Don’t Matter to VCs (though not all agree). [...]

By: Raj Anand

Raj Anand — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:14:36 +0000

Hey Tim great blog post, I totally agree business plan is essential for investment of any sort.

I recently blogged about a template for a business plan for raising funding, would love to have your thoughts: http://blog.kwiqq.com/2009/04/14/business-plan-template-to-grow-a-business/

By: John Krech

John Krech — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 01:50:35 +0000

I agree completely. I took the report to mean “anyone doing a business plan just to get financing – should not waste their time” . The reason being is because they are doing one for all the wrong reasons. A business plan is for the management team. Since two thirds of new businesses fail within seven years, it is very risky to go without a solid and realistic business plan.

By: Christopher Hastings

Christopher Hastings — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:31:38 +0000

Well said.